The present invention relates to devices capable of recording finger movements. Such devices include, for example, computers and phones featuring touch screens, or other recording devices able to record the movement of fingers on a plane or in three-dimensional spaces.
A number of devices where finger interaction is central to their use have recently been introduced. They include mobile telephones (such as IPHONE, a registered trademark of Apple Inc., GALAXY S, a registered trademark of Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd's), tablet computers (such as IPAD, a registered trademark of Apple Inc., or the Blackberry Playbook PLAYBOOK, a trademark of Blackberry Limited), as well as a range of mobile computers, tablets, smart watches, PDAs and satellite navigation assistants. The growth in the use of smart phones, tablets and smart watches in particular has accelerated the introduction of touch screen input for many users and uses.
In some devices featuring a touch screen, it is common for systems to emulate a keyboard text entry system. The devices typically display a virtual keyboard on screen, with users tapping on the different letters to input text. The lack of tactile feedback in this typing process means that users are typically more error prone than when typing on hardware keyboards.
Most text correction systems feature a combination of auto-correcting and manual-correcting (or disambiguation) functionality. Typically, the system will attempt to guess and automatically correct common typing errors. However, many systems perform the auto-correction without any indication of the corrections. Thus, the user must constantly watch what the system is inputting and make manual corrections if an auto-correction error is detected which can slow the text input process. Other correction systems give the user the ability to reject an automatic correction, or manually select an alternative one.
A common problem with such systems is that the user is required to be precise in their typing, and also to be precise in their operation of the auto- and manual-correcting functionality. Such operation typically requires the user to interact with the touch screen by pressing on specific areas of the screen to invoke, accept, reject, or change corrections.
The present invention describes a suite of functions allowing users a much more intuitive, faster and accurate interaction with such a typing system. The resulting system is dramatically more accessible and easy to use for people with impaired vision, compared to other existing systems.